The Proof of Work.

In the early stage of commerce, payment relies almost on trusted third parties to be processed, this ignites the purpose of blockchain electronic payment systems. In 1998 Nick Szabo made the first proposal which wasn’t implemented. Moving forward to 2008 the Bitcoin white paper was published by Satoshi Nakamoto who wrote a proposal to develop a Proof of Work cryptographic mining mechanism for Internet decentralized peer-to-peer transactions.

What Is A Proof of Work (PoW)?

Proof of Work (PoW) is a crypto mining mechanism that requires miners to solve multiple mathematical algorithms using computer hardware. Identifying a single block requires a lot of processing power and validations across the whole network. Proof of work was the earliest form of crypto earning formula used on Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The Proof of Work Miners 

The blockchain runs every data record publicly across multiple computers in the world simultaneously, these data records are called Nodes which automatically update themselves in real-time making the data nodes uncontrolled by a single person or business — this is to enable decentralization on the blockchain.

Proof of Work uses a consensus algorithm to identify a set of network leaders who secure the unsecured blocks of data and are also responsible for broadcasting the blocks to the network therefore other miners validate the content of the block, to enable this a “Hash function” is used.

The Hash Functions

A Hash is a set of mathematical functions used in a cryptographic mining algorithm to map data of arbitrary size to data of fixed size. Every transaction in the blockchain runs through an algorithm that takes each transaction and creates a unique identifying signature of 64 letters and numbers known as the Hash.

In Proof of Work, for a miner to be selected as a block leader on the blockchain, the individual has to find a solution for a unique mathematical difficulty, this is a difficult task, and the only way to solve the problems is by a brutal mechanism. A miner who finds the solution first is given the highest computing power, In conformity to mining, the block leaders get any block reward and part of the transaction fees as incentives.

How Is Proof of Work Secured?

Miners spend lots of time and money on acquiring mining rigs and large amounts of electricity to find a “nonce” that meets the block criteria. 

• A nonce stands for “number only used once”,— the nonce is added to all the data in a block before hashing the block in the mining pool, when a marching number is found it is broadcasted to the network and added to the blockchain, which is the most complicated part of mining.

Due to the high amount of running nodes, limited supply of computational power, and the complicated amount of mathematical algorithms to be solved, it will be difficult to manipulate the network, although mining hardware costs a lot, this

keeps the network secured and also miners are incentivized not to cheat.

Requirements For Mining.

Mining requires lots of electronic voltage, a steady power supply, and sophisticated computer hardware to meet the block criteria while solving mathematical Algorithms, the first computer to find the solution receives the next block of the cryptocurrency, and most miners form a team for collaborative mining while using a Node together.

The trouble 

The Proof of Work blockchain requires high energy to produce good results, Bitcoin mining consumes high electricity which may affect the climate, this is the most discoursed in media and has brought diverse confrontations from the government. To solve this issue Proof of Stake (PoS) was introduced.

The advantage of proof of work is the security standard and proof of stake enhances decentralization.